Where Are They Now, 2009; Part 58

Be warned. This is the penultimate entry. (Giggidy.) If you feel like killing yourself after this, I can't really stop you, and I'm not sure I'd even advise against it.

- Donell Williams is a training camp signing of the Clippers in 2007 who hasn't done anything of note before or since. A 28 year old 6'3 guard, Williams spent his first two collegiate years at West Los Angeles Community College, before transferring to Fayetteville State for his final two years, averaging 15.7 points and 6.0 rebounds in his senior year, 2004-05. D-Will then went back to school for the 2005-06 season to complete his degree, even though he wasn't eligible to play for the basketball team. The following season, his basketball career finally started, with Williams now aged 26. Williams played in the 2006 JBL Pro-Am League, an incredibly unheard-of American minor league that takes place between April and May, in which he averaged 27 ppg, 16 rpg and 5 apg. He then did nothing for the next 16 months, between May 2006 and October 2007. And then he was somehow signed by the Clippers. After unsurprisingly not making the team, Williams went to the D-League, totalled 38 points and 21 rebounds in 18 games with the Bakersfield Jam, and was waived in January 2008. He hasn't played anywhere since.

Of all the random training camp signings we've had over the years - Brad Stricker, Ondrej Starosta, Rashid Byrd, Ajani Williams, etc - I think this one is the most random.

- Corliss Williamson retired in the 2007 offseason and became an assistant coach at Arkansas Baptist College. Whether he's still there or not, I can't tell. Here's a story he's in from a reunion of the 1994 Arkansas Razorbacks.

- Kevin Willis is now 46, and presumably not going to make another comeback. Then again, we fell for that once before. According to this story from October, Willis was running a custom jeans company called Willis & Walker. However, the company's website no longer exists, which doesn't bode well.

- Roderick Wilmont started the year with Solsonica Rieti in Italy, totalling 13 points and 10 fouls in three games, before moving to join Aliaga Petkim in Turkey. Wilmont has averaged 11.0 points and 2.4 rebounds in 20 games in the Turkish league.

- Kennedy Winston did the opposite, starting in Turkey and then leaving. K-Win averaged only 6.2 points and 3.3 rebounds in 16 games for Turk Telekom, before landing a plush gig at Real Madrid as the replacement for Quinton Hosley. Winston has totalled 6 and 3 in his two games there.

- DaShaun Wood averages 5.6 points, 2.1 rebounds and 3.5 assists for Benetton Treviso in the Eurocup. He has barely played for the team in the Italian league, presumably due to some rules limiting the amount of foreigner or something, but he has totalled 23 points, 20 assists and 18 rebounds in the 5 games he has played there.

- Loren Woods - the original L Train, so screw you Austin Carr - was waived by the Rockets this offseason due to a combination of their eternal tightness, the need for roster spots, and his overwhelming mediocrity. He then signed in Lithuania for Zalgiris Kaunsas, and averaged 12.3 points, 9.0 rebounds and 2.4 blocks in the Euroleague, 8.4/5.8/1.4 in the Lithuanian league, and 7.8/8.5/1.5 in the Baltic league. He left the club in December after the near-bankrupt team released all its foreign players in a bid to stay solvent. Woods then signed in Zaragoza (a Spanish city with a tiny airport, albeit with a funky roof), and has averaged 13.0 points and 10.0 rebounds in his two games for the team. To think that I passed within a few miles of Loren Woods recently and didn't know about it. Oh the shame.

- Qyntel Woods started the season with Fortitudo Bologna, and averaged 12.9 points, 3.9 rebounds and 3.0 steals per game in the Italian league, alongside 14.3 ppg and 4.3 rpg in the Eurocup. He then left in January and signed with Prokom Sopot, for whom he has averaged 11.3 points and 3.7 rebounds in the Polish league, alongside 12.2 points and 3.0 rebounds in the Euroleague.

- Bracey Wright started the year with DKV Joventut Badalona, where he averaged 14.0 points, 2.6 rebounds and 2.6 assists in the Spanish league, alongside 12.1 points and 2.8 rebounds in the Euroleague, before being released by the team at the start of the year after he missed a few games due to "family issues". A bit of a soap opera then unfolded; it was widely reported that Wright had signed with KK Zadar in Croatia, but he hadn't, and he eventually re-signed with the team he played for last year, Aris Thessaloniki. However, that was 6 weeks ago, and Wright still hasn't played for them yet due to conditioning problems. This article says that the team might replace him.

- Finally, former Pacers draft pick Rashad Wright is in Germany, playing for ALBA Berlin, a team absolutely stacked with Americans who managed to make it impressively far in this year's Euroleague before becoming completely overmatched. Wright averaged 8.8 points, 2.6 rebounds and 2.4 assists in Euroleague play, along with 8.3 points, 3.3 rebounds and 2.3 assists in the German league, while being part of a fearsome backcourt rotation that also features Casey Jacobsen, Immy McElroy and Julius Jenkins. Yeahhh, you're quaking.

Summer signings, round 16

- Bracey Wright and his Bengali cats are to sign with DKV Joventut Badalona in Spain, where he'll be joined by Pops Mensah-Bonsu. Pops's status was up in the air for a while, as he exercised a clause in his contract that allowed him to attempt to find some NBA work. But there wasn't any, and so Pops will return to Joventut, a broken man. Maybe.

- The point guard crop got another touch weaker, as Dan Dickau signed with Avellino in Italy. (I suppose an altternative title for this post would be "Dick Out!". Ah well, too late now.) Is this the end of Dickau in the NBA? I hope not, but I fear it might be. And that's a crying shame. If it is, and if we include his draft night like we did for Bobby Jones in a previous post, then the list of NBA franchises that Dan Dickau spent some time with is as follows:

1: Sacramento
2: Atlanta
3: Portland
4: Golden State
5: Dallas
6: New Orleans
7: Boston
8: Portland (again)
9: New York
10: L.A. Clippers

In only 6 years, that's a damn good list. Maybe one day, we can add Chicago to it.


- J.R. Pinnock has signed with Pallacanestro Roseto 1946 in Italy's second division. It's hard to make jokes about team's names when they include the year in which they were founded in them. It's hardly the best ammo in the world, is it?

- Dawan Robinson has signed for Prima Veroli, also in Italy's second division. I know that you know who Dawan Robinson is, and I know that you can tell me which NBA franchise he went to training camp with back in 2006 without looking it up. If you can't, there's something deeply wrong with you. (Clue: Dan Dickau once played for them, which gives you a 1 in 9 shot of a lucky guess. Unless you just skipped the bit about Dan Dickau. If you did, there's something deeply wrong with you.)

- The Phoenix Suns' lengthy pursuit to sign Goran Dragic - their own draft pick - ended in misery and defeat. Dragic decided for about the 400th time to stay with Tau Ceramica in Spain, leaving the Suns having to look elsewhere. It hath been mentioned by people whose job it is to mention these things that the Suns will now look at Damon Stoudamire as their next point guard target. I know very little about Goran Dragic, but I know that he's better than Damon freakin' Stoudamire. So this is not much of a consolation prize.

(You know who else is better than Damon Stoudamire? Salim Stoudamire! That's who you need, Steve Kerr!)

- James "Get The" Gist has signed for the elusive Italian stunner herself, Angelico Biella. (That "Get The" thing is an audible joke, by the way, and one that works really well if the name Gist is pronounced with a soft G, and if you have an advanced understand of English lower middle class colloquialisms. If you don't have such an understanding, but would like to develop one, then you've come to the right website.)

- Jermaine Jackson has signed with Udine in Italy. I have literally nothing else to say about that. Not a sausage. Bugger all.

- The draft rights to Kyle Weaver were traded by Charlotte to Oklahoma City in exchange for New Jersey's second round draft choice next season which Oklahoma City owns from the to Mikki Moore trade of whenever it was. Kyle Weaver was rendered obselete after the Bobcats signed Shannon Brown, and the Bobcats signed Shannon Brown almost immediately after I pointed out that no one had signed Shannon Brown, and that no one ever would. So, essentially, Kyle Weaver's plight - if you can call it that - is my fault. Whoops. Sorry about that, Kyle.

- My Call Mike Hall has signed with Armani Jeans Milano. The single best thing about the NBA is the fact that they have not gotten into the trend of selling the team names for commerical sponsorship. Yet.

- Ryvon Covile has signed for Orleans in France, not New Orleans in America. Both Ryvon Covile and Jermaine Jackson graduated from Detroit Mercy - a college which sounds like a WNBA team - and they are quite possibly the only people in the world to have ever graduated from there. Hooray! I thought of something to say about Jermaine Jackson!

- Walter Herrmann re-signed with the Detroit Pistons. Good move. I had assumed, without any real evidence, that Detroit's decision to not tender Herrmann a qualifying offer would mean that Herrmann would have pissed off back to the beautiful continent of Europe, from whence he came. But it would appear that their decision not to do so was solely one of financial motivations - Herrmann has re-signed with the Pistons on a one year deal that pays a significant amount less than the fully guaranteed qualifying offer would have done. So it works out better for Detroit this way. More importantly, they now have a bench player who can score, shoot from the outside, and who doesn't suck. They could still use a guard with a jumpshot - the backup guard rotation of Rodney Stuckey, Will Bynum, Arron Afflalo and probably Lindsey Hunter will hit about 39 threes between them, and you can guarantee that I'm going to bump this post if that number proves to be anywhere close to accurate. Yet Herrmann gives them a shooter and a perimeter scorer off the bench that they had previously lacked. Plus, he's Walter friggin' Herrmann. That's a positive in itself.


And now, ladies and gentleman, Mr Conway Twitty.

Some Euro signings you may give a shit about

Some players and free agents who signed in Europe (or other countries in general) that you may or may not care about. I have tried to keep the relevance to those who either get spoken about as good signing candidates, those who were in the NBA last year, or those of significance who made summer league rosters this year. I can't name everybody. Well, I could, but I don't care enough.


- Martynas Andriuskevicius is about to sign for Joventut in Spain.
- Luke Schenscher signed for Bamburg in Germany.
- P.J. Ramos signed for Fuenlabrada in Spain.
- Michael Bradley signed for ALBA Berlin in Germany.
- Will Blalock signed for Hapoel Jerusalem in Israel.
- Marcus Fizer signed for Maccabi Tel Aviv, also in Israel.
- Nikoloz Tskitishvil signed with Teramo in Italy.
- Ersan Ilyasova signed with Barcelona. In Spain. Obviously.
- Julius Hodge signed with Varese in Italy.
- James Singleton signed with Tau Vitoria in Spain.
- Lawrence Roberts signed with Olympiakos in Greece.
- Jared Reiner signed with Murcia in Spain.
- Zeljko Rebraca signed with Pamesa Valencia in Spain.
- Bracey Wright signed with Aris Thessaloniki in Greece.


More when I can be arsed.